


Companions

by vlalekat



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Backstory, F/F, F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-04
Updated: 2017-03-31
Packaged: 2018-09-28 08:13:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10080932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vlalekat/pseuds/vlalekat
Summary: An anthology about the  Companions of Whiterun woven within the greater story of Skyrim.Bethesda and ZeniMax have made something awesome. I just like to play in it.





	1. Ria

**Author's Note:**

> I’m going back through some old work and editing and revising it. I’ll slowly be adding to this anthology as I complete updates. Feedback is always appreciated!

When they were little girls, Ria and Sabrin had dreamed of becoming warrior maids. Running through the streets of Skingrad with sticks for weapons, they’d always stopped before the doors of the Fighter’s Guild and watched through the windows. The men and women inside had seemed impossibly brave and tall, their armor gleaming and faces hard-set.

Ria lived on one side of the lane and Sabrin on the other; their parents were both merchants, though Ria’s father specialized in importing delicacies from other parts of the Empire and Sabrin’s had a shop selling fine textiles. Each girl had a tutor and after their lessons, their tutors would allow them to spend some time together in one home’s garden or the other while the older women drank tea and gossiped. It was during these hours that the girls would get into the most trouble, with one of the tutors sighing, “When your mother hears about this…” The tutors seemed to take turns saying this, and there was never a day where one of them failed to say it.

Though both were Imperial by birth, Sabrin was nearly as fair as Ria was dark. Her great-grandmother had been a Nord, and the blonde hair and blue eyes had passed down through the line; Sabrin’s skin was pale and rosy and sprinkled with tan freckles; she stood nearly a head taller than Ria, though she was born at the end of Last Seed where Ria had been nearly walking by then.

Ria was dark, and small, and quick, with delicate bones and fine wrists. Sabrin always said that the older girl had eyes like an ember.

And so the girls learned sums and music and dancing - all appropriate things for young ladies who aspired to the upper class to learn – and meanwhile they dreamed of picking up swords and running off and having adventures. They’d grown up hearing stories of the Hero of Kvatch, of great deeds and sacrifice, and as children, these possibilities seemed so real, so exciting.

They didn’t know yet what fear was.

“Someday,” Sabrin told her as they hid under the giant leaves of a bush that grew at the back end of her garden, “We’ll have armor that shines in the sunlight, and swords so sharp that they will cut through bone. We’ll save whole towns from marauding orcs and rescue children held hostage.”

Ria thought she’d take just about any armor that would stop a blade, whether it was dented or not.

 

* * *

 

It was shortly after Ria’s tenth birthday the day they first heard about the Companions.

As usual, they’d escaped their tutors and were on their way to lurk in front of the Fighter’s Guild to see if the windows might be open and they could hear some of the boasts the warriors would tell each other. Ria was getting old enough to tell that some of them might be tall tales, or at least embellishments, but Sabrin still loved them, and there was likely still some truth to the stories.

As they neared the gate, they saw three men and a woman enter the city; four Nords, tall enough to see over the Imperials lingering near the gate. All had fearsome painted designs on their faces, and two of the men wore queer-looking, heavy armor with fur lining. His skin glistened with sweat in the Imperial humidity. They were laughing as they headed for the West Weald Inn, even though they were exhausted and dusty from the road. She felt a longing in her stomach as she watched them adjust their weapons with practiced ease. The oldest man, the one with the braids, opened the door to the Inn and the foursome walked in.

Ria stopped Sabrin with a hand on her friend’s arm and pointed to the two warriors. “Who do you think they are?”

“Probably Companions from Skyrim,” Sabrin said, her voice a little dismissive. “I’ve heard about them in stories from my mother. She says one of my great-great grandfathers was in the Companions, but it sounds like they’re little more than barbarians.” She sniffed. “We better get going.”

Ria allowed herself to be dragged down the street by her friend, but she kept looking back, wondering what stories the travelers might have.

 

* * *

 

She heard a few of them that very night.

Nearly frantic with yearning to know more, she’d waited until she knew her parents were settled by the fire, and pulled her dress back on. In the next room, she could hear the rise and fall of her tutor’s quiet breathing. She held her slippers in her hands and snuck down the stairs.

Mother and Father were laughing quietly by the fire, each with a cup of wine in their hands; neither looked towards the door as Ria eased it quietly open and stepped outside. Slowly – so, _so_ slowly – she shut the door behind herself and looked around.

She’d never been out alone after dark before – it wasn’t “becoming,” whatever that meant – and it was amazing to her how beautiful the city looked, all burning lamps and dark shadows. It felt dangerous to be out alone even though it couldn’t be later than half past eight, and she felt a thrill in her step as she slid one slipper onto each foot.

She hadn’t bothered to ask Sabrin on this trip, and it was the first time she’d avoided sharing something exciting as this with her best friend. But even though she thought of Sabrin as a sister, she kept hearing that derisive little sniff in her friend’s voice, and wondered idly how Sabrin could think so little of such impressive warriors. For the first time, she wondered a little if she and her friend still shared the same goal.

Sneaking into the West Weald Inn was short work; despite her nerves and buckling knees, she walked through the front door as if she belonged there and headed upstairs. It was easy enough to hide behind the bannister at the top of the stairs and hear everything; at this hour, most all the patrons were downstairs drinking and eating. The inn was busy enough that no one noticed her.

The Companions were seated by the fire and - judging by the bottles on their table - had been there for quite some time. They were jolly with wine, and the younger blond man in the finely-wrought leather armor kept making toasts.

“To the orcs!” He’d toast. Or, later: “To the Imperials!” It sounded as if there was nothing he _wouldn’t_ drink to. She wondered what the orcs had done to deserve a toast.

Ria peered through the bars that held up the bannister and smiled. He seemed a merry sort.

The woman leaned against one of the men in the heavy armor, her dark auburn hair mingling with the shadows. He smiled then did something strange – he sniffed her hair, and then nuzzled the top of her head with his nose.

Somehow, these four Companions seemed more interesting, more _vital_ than the members of the Fighter’s Guild ever did. For a moment, Ria remembered Sabrin’s comment about barbarians and wondered why her friend would make such a claim. But it was a brief thought, because the oldest man at the table was beginning to regale the woman and the blond man – who was looking very drunk indeed, after all his toasts – with a story involving some orcs.

“It must have been twenty orcs,” the man was saying. His voice was rich, and his accent was the most musical thing Ria had ever heard. It reminded her of when she heard her tutor singing in the bath, but somehow was even better – the deepness of it resonated, and something about just the tenor of it made her listen more raptly. “Every one of them was angry and ready to kill us.”

“Mayhap it was more like twenty-five,” the younger man in heavy armor cut in. The woman smiled at him indulgently, and he smiled back at her, then leaned in and – quick as you can – kissed her on the forehead.

“Mayhap it was,” the older man said. He paused again, took a drink from the cup before him. “And all were armed to the teeth. But we’d promised to clear the mine and had taken payment, and a Companion’s word is his honor.”

The blond man gave a laugh that was part snort. “I’m surprised you made it.”

“Well, it’s rare to win a fight worth having with no scars,” the older man admitted. He pointed to the scar over his white eye, the angry red line that sliced through his brow. From here, Ria couldn’t see what made it look so weird, but it looked different from the other eye. “They got me pretty good.”

The blond man laughed. “I’ve seen worse, old man.”

They all laughed at that.

Ria lingered, listening to their stories for the next couple hours. When they began to break up and leave for bed, she realized what time it was – long after midnight, and she had better sneak home before she was missed. Her parents would were impatient enough with her wild trips through the city – they would be furious if they found out she snuck out after dark.

As she made her way home that night, she stuck to the shadows and stepped into alleyways when she heard people coming. She missed three town guards and a young man that she thought must surely be a cutpurse from the catlike way he moved down the walk. And all the time, she kept hearing the older man’s voice saying, “It’s rare to win a fight worth having with no scars.”

 

* * *

 

She snuck into the West Weald Inn the next three nights and listened to their stories. Sometimes the blond man told boastful tales that all seemed to end with a buxom wench in his bed; other times, the woman would talk of tracking prey through a forest. Sometimes the woman and the man in the heavy armor – Ria thought they must be lovers – would argue and when they scrapped, it was like two dogs fighting over a bit of meat. Their fights seemed to always end with a passionate run back to their shared room, earning them a frown from Erina over the bar.

It was the third night that it happened: as she was leaving the inn, the older man caught her. She felt his hand on her shoulder, firm but gentle, and she turned.

His face was lined with more wrinkles than she’d realized; this close she could see the shadow of a blue iris. A network of red lines formed a design on one cheek, but for all his fearsome qualities, the expression he gave her was kind, even warm. His smile seemed genuine, where so many in Skingrad were false.

“What brings you here, girl?”

Ria thought for a long moment. “The stories.”

This brought a smile to the man’s face. If it weren’t for the scar and the face paint, he might have been her grandfather.

“Yes, the young ones do know how to tell a good tale,” he sighed.

“I want to be a Companion,” Ria blurted out. She hadn’t actually considered it before that moment but as soon as the words were out, she realized that yes, this was exactly what she wanted.

“An Imperial Companion,” the older man mused. “That would be _something._ ” He met her eyes again, and it unsettled her how the white eye moved. It seemed as if it could still see, but how?

“I am Kodlak,” he said to her.

“Ria.” She was not afraid.

He smiled again. “Come see me in six years’ time, Ria, and we will talk about your future.”

 

* * *

 

Ria became obsessed. She asked every minstrel she could find for a song or a story about the Companions, and eventually heard the one about Skjor and Kodlak – that was the one who’d told her to see him! – fighting off a horde of over a hundred orcs (ah, but _she_ knew it was many times fewer!).

Sabrin quickly tired of Ria’s constant pestering for stories of the Companions. “I don’t _know_ any stories about them,” was her refrain.

But Ria kept on. By the year’s end, she’d finally discovered that the Companions were based in a city called Whiterun, far to the northeast and over the border, in Skyrim.

She tried to find out everything she could about Skyrim, but most everyone she talked to had the same attitude of Sabrin, mumbling about barbarians and snow and how she’d be mad to care about Skyrim with the Imperial City right up the road.

A fire had been lit inside of her, one that burned brightly for frost-tipped spires and the mountain she’d heard of, called the Throat of the World.

This was the year that Sabrin discovered boys. Once crude beings that spat in the streets and made a variety of unappealing smells, suddenly boys were all she spoke of. She began to wear her hair down instead of the braid she’d always favored, and laughed at every ludicrous thing the boys said. When Ria wanted to head down to the Fighter’s Guild to see if any of the members would teach her a move or two with a sword, her friend would laugh in that derisive way and say that she had better things to do.

It was during dinner one night that summer that Ria’s mother first mentioned marriage. Her little sister, at the far end of the table, gave out a giggle.

“But I’m barely eleven!” Ria complained.

“It’s never too early,” Mother scolded. “Eat your pease.”

With talk of marriage and Sabrin attempting to flirt with boys, Ria sometimes felt she was the only one staying still with everyone else changing around her.

She always spent her late afternoons at the Fighter’s Guild now. She’d found an older woman willing to teach her how to use a small sword and shield. Though Ria had no money for her own gear, the woman – a Redguard named Isa – was happy to let the girl borrow hers. They’d drill for at least an hour and then, when Ria was warmed up, they’d spar.

Without fail, Isa would win. Ria was often left with bruises to hide and stories of tripping down stairs to concoct. One afternoon, Isa pulled Ria’s long braid to gain the upper hand, tugging on it to pull the girl off balance and then disarming her before she could get her feet back under her.

“That wasn’t fair,” the girl cried from her back on the hard stone floor.

“Fair doesn’t matter if you’re dead.” The Redguard’s face was impassive beneath her turban. She held her wooden practice sword at Ria’s throat for a moment longer, as if to make her point, then moved it to one side and helped the girl up.

But the point was made; the next day, Ria took a small knife and cut her hair to chin length. Her mother cried and locked her in her room for a couple days, but by week’s end, Ria was back out with her friend, watching Sabrin try to flirt with the boys and wondering when she’d be able to get away to practice with Isa again.

 

* * *

 

Armor was the most difficult hurdle. Ria could think of no better way to get it than to sell something of value, but she didn’t have much. She had some nice dresses, but nothing ornamental enough to afford a set of armor, and she had no jewelry to speak of. Sabrin was no help with ideas – by now her friend had gone off the idea of being a fighter entirely and, at fifteen, spent all her time planning her wedding to the son of another merchant, who specialized in fertilizer.

Imagine: married forever to a man who sold dung for a living. Ria thought she’d rather die.

But somehow, despite how distant they’d grown, it was Sabrin who gave her the idea. Not intentionally, of course, but one afternoon as the two girls sat in Sabrin’s family’s garden drinking tea – and when, exactly, had they become tea-drinkers? – Sabrin mentioned the number of young men who had sent her family gifts in an attempt at securing a betrothal.

“Naturally, we didn’t keep them,” Sabrin chattered. Ria looked at her friend, at her carefully styled blonde hair and the pearl-embroidered neckline of her gown, and wondered when exactly Sabrin had turned into the kind of girl they used to mock.

It was easy enough for Ria to find young men who were looking for marriage. She didn’t aim nearly as high as Sabrin did, being content with those who would soon inherit shops selling dry goods or other wares. Those who worked in successful businesses were able to send enviable enough bride-gifts, and before long, a small pile had amassed in the entry way.

Ria didn’t harbor any illusions that this had much to do with her, or her somewhat questionable charms. She knew what kind of connections her father had, and knew that most young merchants would be anxious to access them. It didn’t matter; it was the value of the items she was after.

Early one morning, long before the sun came up, she climbed out of bed. She carefully pulled on some clothes she’d stolen from her younger brother: a tunic, pair of roughspun trousers, a heavy and unembellished cloak. She carried her rucksack and the boots under her arm. Downstairs, in the kitchen, she packed a loaf of bread, salt pork, some cheese, a flagon of water.

In the front hall, she took every last piece of jewelry and stuffed it in the bag; altogether, it should fetch a nice price. She hoped it would be enough to cover armor and a sword and passage to Whiterun; while she felt bad about the young men losing what they’d spent to woo her, she found that she felt less badly about it than expected. Perhaps they should have known it would be a waste; perhaps her parents should have known she would never marry some dull and reedy boy and live out her days in Skingrad.

Last of all, she left a note on the table in place of the necklaces and rings. It simply told her family thank you for their care over the years and not to worry about her.

She was off to become a legend.

 


	2. Athis

No matter what he did, it seemed Athis was always inadequate.

His feet were heavy as he walked down the stairs to the bedchambers beneath Jorrvaskr. Each footfall echoed in the stairwell, a low, plodding sound that echoed the thundering bellows of shame in his head.

Defeated by a damn wolf. It just wasn’t right. He _should_ be better than this.

He opened the door and looked down the hall. No one was there, thank goodness. He’d seen Torvar and Vilkas sparring in the yard, and inside the hall, Njada and Aela were drinking.

“Back so soon, new blood?” Njada had jeered at him as he walked by. He wanted to turn, to challenge her, but before he could, the thought struck him that there was no point. He would just lose, just as he had to the freakish wolf that was still terrorizing the Western end of the hold. Something had been wrong with that animal; it was too big, too strong, too fast. Too smart. At every turn it had outwitted him, outmaneuvered him.

They should have sent Aela, she was the hunter, he reflected sourly as he trudged down the hall. If only this hadn’t been his test. If only it had been something else, something – anything – he’d been prepared for…although he wondered now if he’d just been setting himself up to fail from the beginning. If the fortune and glory of being a Companion had always been out of his reach.

The hall was wide, dim, and the torches flickered as he walked past. It was warm down here, and felt safe; the pleasure it gave him made him still angrier with himself to think that now he would be kicked out.

There hadn’t been a back-up plan; he wasn’t supposed to fail. Somehow, for some reason, he’d thought that if he could just get to Whiterun, proving himself would be easy. And then he’d have a family, and a bed, and the shot at triumph that he’d always dreamt of.

He couldn’t go back to Windhelm to live in that squalid stone pit they called the Grey Quarter; he hadn’t the magical ability to attend the College at Winterhold, and thieving held no allure. What did that leave? Farming? He had no desire to spend his days pulling endless weeds or fretting over each frost – leave that for the Nords, or for those too afraid of the world.

That was the problem, perhaps; his ability, and he’d never learned to fear.

But all that time, all those years spent training with a sword – could this really be it?

Perhaps he could find work as a mercenary. But no one would want to hire a mercenary that couldn’t even kill a stupid wolf. The story was probably out already; Njada Stone-bitch had probably already shared it with the rest of the Companions, and even if he wasn’t told to pack up and get out, they’d taunt him forever about his first failure.

He reached the door at the far end of the hall and stood there; the quiet stretched around him like a living thing. It mocked him and his inadequacy. His breath was hot, shameful. It smelled of onions, he realized after a moment. But what did that matter?

Failure smelled of onions. That seemed fitting, somehow.

He was going to have to leave. They’d never let him be a Companion now.

From the other side of the door, Kodlak’s voice sounded, “Come in, young man.”

Athis opened the door and walked through, shutting it quietly behind him. Farkas was sitting next to the old man at a small table in the corner. The younger man’s face was grim beneath the black paint around his eyes, but the older man seemed calm, almost beatific.

“I’ll just be going then. I’ll think about what you said,” the big man stood. There was an inexplicable waft of wet dog as he strode past Athis, and then he was gone. The door closed quietly behind him.

“Have a seat,” said Kodlak. Athis moved to the chair Farkas had been sitting in and took a moment to look around. He’d never seen Kodlak’s sitting room before, and it was filled with treasures; here a giant’s toe and a bunch of deathbells, and over there a display case that held beautiful, finely-wrought daggers.

What a pity he would never get to look around this place again, Athis thought absently. There was so much he would just have to wonder about.

“I take it from your face that the assignment didn’t go well,” Kodlak began. Athis hadn’t even realized it, but as he tuned in now, he realized he was scowling.

He nodded, unable to meet Kodlak’s eyes in his disgrace.

He was going to cry. He couldn’t cry. Companions didn’t cry.

But then again, a whelp who failed their test would never _be_ a Companion.

“I failed,” he finally said. His voice was flat. “I managed to drive the wolf off the homestead, but I failed to kill it. It will likely return.”

Kodlak nodded, a small, enigmatic smile on his face. “So the wolf lives,” he said, after a moment. “Ah, well.”

And then, without considering it, Athis voiced what had been bothering him: “I lost. To a dumb animal. I’ll never be a Companion, and I don’t blame you. But there was something unnatural about that wolf.”

Kodlak crooked a wry eyebrow at him, and Athis somehow felt it was safe to continue, even though saying it seemed absurd.

“It was too big. And too smart. And I swear it walked on two feet.” He paused. “Do you believe in werewolves?”

At this, Kodlak burst into laughter. Despite his chuckling, Athis didn’t feel the old man was laughing at him.

“You may have failed at killing the wolf,” the Harbinger said, filling a mug with a bottle of ale. “But you did return.” He offered the mug to Athis, who took a long drink from it. The ale was frothy and warm and had a distinctly hoppy flavor, the way most ale in Whiterun did. He longed momentarily for the stouter, darker flavor of the drinks in Windhelm, but that was foolish.

He’d be back in the New Gnisis Corner Club with a mug of the house special before he knew it. No point in pining for what he’d have soon enough.

“It takes a lot of courage to own up to a failure,” the old man said, taking a sip from his own mug. “The kind of courage we seek in our Companions.”

He couldn’t be hearing this right. Could he?

“Sir?”

“You came back here even though you did not succeed in your mission. You returned to Jorrvaskr though you knew in your heart that you would be discarded. I say that takes a singular amount of courage.”

Athis took another long drink of ale. He couldn’t be hearing this right. It was a dream. The wolf had bitten him and now he was bleeding out in a row of crops, and in his blood loss he was hallucinating.

Some hallucination, though. He could taste the bitterness of the hops on his tongue, could feel the scratchy straw seat of the chair against his calves, could feel the ache of tired muscles in his legs. Would he feel all this in a dream?

Probably not.

“You’re telling me I can stay?” He finally met Kodlak’s eyes.

“I think you have the valor of a Companion, yes. Why don’t you head to the yard and spar with Farkas.” Kodlak’s face became more serious. “We need to be able to count on you in the future.”

Athis drained the mug. His heart was soaring, his feet couldn’t stand to be still.

He was a Companion.


	3. Aela

In her dreams, she was on the hunt.

The plains of Whiterun hold spread before her, and the grasses glinted in the sunlight. There was the scent of elk on the wind, a musky, wonderful aroma that called to her. She stalked through the grass, crouched, her bow ready.

And then she pounced, and there was only the wolf; the girl was gone, the girl was forgotten. The elk was beneath her, and her teeth sank into its neck. There was blood on her muzzle. The elk thrashed, but she held tightly, tearing into its flesh. The animal’s fur caught in her teeth, but the blood was intoxicating as it ran down her, and she grabbed the elk between her paws and tore at it.

When it lay dead upon the ground, she feasted. After a moment, she was joined by her mate. He rubbed against her flank as he descended upon her kill, and her lust stirred at his scent.

After a kill, she always wanted him.

So they rolled in the grass together. It was playful and dangerous; he nipped at her throat and she clawed his back, and at some point they were man and woman again, their clothes long since lost in the grasses that danced in the breeze. Skjor’s back was scratched and beautiful in the dappled sunlight, and everywhere were the heady mingled scents of the elk’s blood and of him on her skin.

Slowly Aela came awake in her room in Jorrvaskr. Around her, stone walls and the flicker of a candle. On her bedside table sat a sad-looking wedge of cheese and a cup of water. She looked at the plate and mug with annoyance.

Meat. She needed meat.

It had to be early yet, and they’d all gone to bed quite late. There had been a lot of carousing after their return to Jorrvaskr. They had the fragments but Skjor was gone.

_Skjor._

It hit her at once, as if the walls had collapsed around her. There was the memory of Skjor’s body on a slab, the singular scent of him corrupted with death.

She remembered what happened afterwards, of shooting and stabbing and slicing; and then the turn and biting and clawing. But that long moment when she’d seen his body there lingered. She’d gotten her vengeance, but what was vengeance when he was gone?

Aela closed her eyes in the dark of her room. Maybe she could still go back to sleep? Maybe if she tried very hard, she could return to her dream, and back to the comfort of him. She pulled the furs over her head, breathing shallowly in the tent they made. It was black in here, completely dark. If she lay still enough, perhaps she would go back to sleep.

But sleep was elusive; it crept away from her no matter how doggedly she hunted it. She lay there for what felt like days but was likely only an hour, then gave up. She pulled the covers back with a heavy sigh and stared at the flicker of the candle on the ceiling.

When they’d first gotten together, he’d been hesitant, timid. She’d been new to the Circle and he’d known her mother. He was so much older than her, grizzled and experienced. But he’d been a legend, and she’d been drawn to him even before the Change.

Once she’d become a sister of Hircine, it had seemed inevitable. They’d always hunted together but after – now they began to tumble in the fields around Whiterun or the marshes of Hjaalmarch, sometimes as men and others as wolves. The forests of Falkreath had never seemed as alive as they did when she fell into a bed of pine needles with him atop her, and the sense that it was somehow forbidden made it even more enticing.

Aela turned and lowered her face into the bed. The scent of him was still there, but so faint.

He’d ceased sharing her bed some time ago. He’d never given her a reason, and she wasn’t inclined to ask. She was too proud to go to him as a supplicant, to wonder why he had left her.

And he was gone for good. Even his smell was nearly gone.

She hung her head in her hands. There were no tears – she’d shed those yesterday before heading back to Jorrvaskr. Now there was only shame at her stupid pride, at letting him pull away from her, at thinking there would always be time for them to hunt again.

The stone floor was cold beneath her feet, but she didn’t care. Aela walked to her door and poked her head around, looked out into the hall. Torches burned, but everything was quiet except for Farkas humming a song in his room across the main hall.

She waited, letting the seconds tick by into minutes. She tried to get up the nerve to go forward or back, to do something besides wait. Suddenly disgusted by her own uncertainty, she ducked into Skjor’s old room.

Everywhere around her, his smell lingered. She stood in it for a moment, basked in what would probably be the last time she could feel him around her. His room was nearly a mirror image of hers, but in small ways so different. He preferred to bring down bears and wolves, and those were the skins she found on the bed and the floor.

Under the bed sat a flagon of mead. She sat down on the edge of the bed, pulled it out, and took a long drink. She pulled a fur from beneath her and wrapped it around herself, drinking in the heat and the scent of it.

The door opened, and she nearly jumped out of her hide.

Vilkas stood in the doorway. He looked tired; the skin around his eyes was red, and there were shadows that told her he hadn’t slept in days.

“I heard,” he said, and his voice was ragged.

She nodded, mute. What was there to say?

Vilkas came into the room, sat beside her. He was smaller without his armor, more lean than she remembered. The three of them – she and Vilkas and Farkas – were practically siblings, having grown up in and around the Companions. She remembered sparring with them as a child. They were only a couple years older than she, and they’d all been admitted within a year of each other.

They’d all taken the blood of the wolf together, too.

“You loved him,” her shield-brother said.

There was no response but to nod; she’d thought her tears were gone, but she could feel a lump in her throat that kept words from escaping. There was nothing to say. Vilkas took the flagon from her and took a long drink. He sat, holding it and staring at his hands.

“I can’t believe it.”

“I couldn’t bring him back. It was too far, and he was too heavy.” Her voice was unrecognizable, even to her. But then, when had she ever mourned like this before? Her mother had died when she was so young Aela barely remembered her. Her father had died more recently, but still, they hadn’t been close. There had been Companions that had been killed while she had been a member, but none that she’d been close to.

She’d barely gotten him out of that pit of a ruined fort. After a long rest, she’d set a fire to melt some snow and soften the ground for digging, but it hadn’t been enough. She’d had to settle for building him a tomb of scavenged stones, a cairn to house his body until spring, when she could return with a shovel and more energy.

Vilkas was looking at her carefully. Did he think she was going crazy? She wondered idly if she might be.

She took the flagon back and drank from it again, more to give herself something to do than because she was thirsty. There was nothing left for her now but revenge, but in the moment she wondered if she even had the energy for it.

“We will destroy them all, you know.” He said it in a curiously matter-of-fact tone. There was no tone of vengeance in Vilkas’s voice, and she wondered if he was saying this for her benefit or for his.

Aela planned to rain down on the Silver Hand with fury; that wasn’t a question. But that would come later; now was the time for her to grieve, not just for Skjor but for the chance she’d lost when she’d let him pull away. There would never be a litter of pups now, or another hunt through the meadows. They wouldn’t taste the blood of a fresh kill together, or run through the snow with the wind in their fur.

Vilkas’s hand was warm on her own. It was there only for a moment, a quick squeeze as he stood.

“He’ll be in Hircine’s hunting grounds,” he said. He took one more sip from the flagon, and turned. At the door he paused. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

The door shut quietly behind him.

Hircine’s hunting grounds. Of course.

They would be united one day; how could she have forgotten? He’d died with the blood of the wolf, just as he’d lived. Just as she planned to. He wouldn’t go to Sovngarde like most Nords – he would be in the hunting grounds with Hircine, as she would.

Someday, she’d fall in battle; she’d come out on the wrong end of someone else’s sword, or a spell would hit her wrong and burst her into flames. She’d collapse in her own blood and at that moment, she’d know that everything was going to be alright because she was on her way to the eternal hunt. And then there would be the woods – endless woods, beautiful in moonlight, with the scent of frightened animals like an elixir.

And Skjor would be there, too. They would hunt together, and they would play; they would rediscover each other under the heavy dark boughs of a pine tree. They would feast on fresh meat; they would feast on each other.

In Hircine’s hunting grounds, they would be reunited for eternity.

Suddenly, Aela was hungry again. If she hurried, she could be out on the plains before dawn.

It was time to hunt.


	4. Torvar

Torvar was walking back to Whiterun from Rorikstead when he saw it. If he hadn’t been so distracted, thinking about the bandits he’d just put down and where he would stop to drink away the coin he’d earned, he would have known it for what it was right away. At first he thought it was a cloud, and he wondered why it was so much darker than the clouds around and behind it; shouldn’t it be the same moody grey as those, instead of black and billowing?

His eyes traced the line of the cloud towards the ground, where it was hidden beneath a low, rocky hill. It pulsed like his son’s cord had at birth. And that was the memory that triggered his understanding.

 _Fire._ Something was burning over the horizon; something bigger than a campfire.

There was a moment that stretched almost to breaking where the images clicked over in his brain, where his heart thumped powerfully in his chest. Then he took off at top speed, hurtling over the cobblestone road. As he always had, often to his own detriment, Torvar ran towards the danger instead of away. Someone’s croft or stable was burning and so he would try to help, and if that later proved to be a bad idea, he would pay for it.

That was just the way it went.

 

* * *

 

He had been sixteen when he convinced Silje to marry him. She was two years older, a farmer’s daughter turned shield-maid, and had always disdained him when they were younger. When he was ten, he would tell her that someday she’d be his wife, and she’d laugh and punch him and run away. He wasn’t deterred though; she was the most beautiful girl in the village, with her hair like flax and eyes as blue as mountain flowers. When she punched him, he wore the bruises like badges of honor, reminders of his love for her.

He never strayed or considered another girl; everyone knew in the old tales the shield-maid would resist the right man until he completed some task. He could wait; Torvar had faith that someday she would see him as he saw her.

Something changed though, midsummer of his fifteenth year; the girls in the village started giving him looks as he passed. He’d catch them going silent when he approached and then giggling as he walked away; at first it made him nervous and then, one day, his older brother explained what was happening.

“They did it with me, too,” Thorstein said. At twenty, his brother was strong and blond and carried a huge steel sword on his back. He worked in the smithy, and his arms were massive. “It means they like you.”

Torvar began spending more time around the girls; in a matter of days, Silje began showing up where he did, joining his conversations, staring at him when she thought he wasn’t looking. When he caught her staring, she held his eyes longer than was natural. It had taken no time at all for him to catch her behind the tavern and steal a kiss, and by the next summer they were betrothed. He bought a small farm, tried growing his man’s beard.

They were wed before Last Seed in the village square. She wore ribbons in her hair, blue and red weaving through the fair curls. When the breeze blew it back from her face, he could see the strong curve of her jaw, the milky line of her throat. Later, when things went sour, he’d remember the taste of juniper berries in the mead and the feel of her hand in his.

It was all he’d ever wanted, and if he’d known it would be over before he was twenty, he might have paid better attention.

It was three weeks after his son was born that the raiders struck the village, burning everything in sight. He had been away at the market selling crops, and stopped in the tavern for a drink before the long ride home. When the raiders came at him on the road, he lost the horse and all the coin he’d made that day hawking turnips and cabbages.

Later, Torvar would hear that their farm was one of the first to go up. Silje and the boy never stood a chance, not with how weak she was after the birth. Later, he found their bodies still in the bed, charred and too hot to touch. His son’s remains were so small the grave was barely longer than Torvar’s foot.

He wondered, interminably, what their ends had been like; had the smoke gotten them, or had the raiders first cut their throats? Had his wife been raped, or his son tortured?

The question of their last moments haunted him. _Plagued_ him.

The house was reduced to little more than embers but he lived in it anyway, surviving on the gold the raiders had undoubtedly been searching for, safe under the loose stone in the hearth. The irony of this did not escape him.

Nights were spent in the tavern, getting drunk enough to forget or at least to weep. Sometimes someone helped him home, but some nights were spent in the mud. One memorable morning he woke up in a pig pen with his arms wrapped around a sow. The garden lay fallow, the fish traps untended.

When Skjor had come through some time later – two years? Five? He’d lost track of time entirely and knew only that it was a wet day in late autumn - they’d gotten into a brawl outside the tavern. Mead-sodden though Torvar was, still the older man had seen something in him. Skjor told him to clean himself up and show up in Whiterun if he wanted something more than a life drowning in his cups.

He’d been able to do about half that; he’d made it to Whiterun two weeks later with aged leather armor purchased with the last of his coin, a shield that had seen better days, and a chip the size of the Throat of the World on his shoulder.

Instead of the life he thought he’d have, in bucolic bliss with the girl of his dreams, Torvar settled for smashing in skulls and drinking mead whenever his pockets jingled. Every so often, Skjor would try to convince him to put down the drink, but after a day or so, Torvar’s hands would begin to shake so he could barely hold a sword and his head would ache so he could barely put two words together, and he’d find his way back to the tavern.

He knew it was too late for him. All that was left was to die with valor.

They’d fight, him and Skjor. Sometimes with words, others with fists. Perhaps Skjor felt responsible for him, but Torvar didn’t know why and, most days, didn’t care. When he lay in the mud behind Jorrvaskr, his face inches from a cobblestone, beaten by Skjor once again, he thought about telling them all why he was so angry, but then the idea drifted away again.

It didn’t matter; talking about it wouldn’t change what had happened. It wouldn’t bring back what he’d lost.

Instead, he did as they asked; he ran to the danger, and when it passed and he still found his feet in Skyrim, he wondered what the point of it all was.

 

* * *

 

Whoever had set the fire was long gone when he crested the hill and began the final push towards the burning homestead. In the distance, the spires of Whiterun stood tall; it looked so close, but there would be no help from the city. The closest streams were too far, and while the sky promised rain, it hadn’t yet delivered.

Torvar’s breath was heavy in his lungs; he heaved as he ran down the hill, his feet not going as fast as his legs. He’d crash and roll and impale himself on his own sword if he wasn’t careful, and wouldn’t that be a pathetic way to go?

He slowed his pace even though he yearned to reach the house as quickly as possible, and sheathed his sword as he ran. Outside the house, he dropped his heavy shield in the grass.

There was no sign of life around the homestead; the crops had long since burned to ash, as was the hay spread for the chickens. An egg had been laid this morning; it looked as if it had cooked in its shell, charred white and yolk running down the sides. The house was still burning, but when Torvar tore through the door, he found no bodies, only fading flames.

No one to save. No chance at redemption.

He looked through the whole house, trying to ignore the heaving of the roof above him. Perhaps the timbers, worn down by fire, would collapse on his head and end his miserable life.

If only he was so lucky.

But the roof held, and no matter how he searched, he found no one. Not a living soul, not a single corpse, not even a chicken. No children hiding under the bed and no bodies that would be left undiscovered for the crows. Nothing but embers and crackling wood. When he made his way back outside, the clouds had parted and a single beam of sunlight shone down and over the hill, towards Whiterun.

He stood in the road, the heat from the dying fire warm against his back, and sighed in dismay. Ahead of him lay another lonely night at the meadery; behind, another fire that had refused to kill him. He stood there, and sighed, and wished for the end.

Finally, he picked up his shield and resumed the endless trudge to Whiterun. So passed a moment full of promise for heroism and ripe with redemption that was, as always, unfulfilled.


	5. Njada

With the door cracked open, Njada could hear the carousing downstairs in the common room of the Bee and Barb. It was early yet, and she sat on her rented bed, waiting for the laughter by the fire to grow loud enough that she could sneak out. She could hear Vilkas’s voice drifting up the stairs as he argued with Aela over something; beneath that was the low rumble of Farkas talking to a girl, who giggled. It was probably the insipid redhead he’d been ensconced in the corner with when she’d gone upstairs, claiming a headache. Just the sight of him talking to that girl had made her angry.

Well, angrier than normal.

There were other voices talking down there and a bard singing that song about Ragnar the Red. His tone was off-key; there was laughter like nails on a slate. When the babble had risen loudly enough, Njada stood. She glanced in the mirror, winced at the horror that was her ridiculous gray hair, and jammed her helmet on.

Better. How frustrating it was to have an entire head of gray hair at twenty-five. No wonder – no, there was no time for vanity or self-pity.

She snuck down the stairs, boots in her hand, her stocking feet as silent as a cat’s. She’d spent enough time making her way up and down these stairs as a girl, and sure enough, they still squeaked in the same places; at the third step from the bottom, she leapt quietly to the floor below.

No one heard her, no one saw her as she snuck out the door. It was rare she needed to use the gifts she’d acquired in childhood, but every once in a while they came in handy.

The streets of Riften were still alive this early; merchants were still packing up, and across the market square a blacksmith hammered. Berin must have given the shop over, because he always knocked off before six and headed over to the inn for a barrel of mead. By half-past nine, he wouldn’t have noticed a hagraven tap-dancing on the bar, let alone Njada’s slim fingers in his purse.

It was a short walk to the orphanage, but Njada took her time. Around her, people bade each other good night; elves left the meadery for the sour sadness of the bunkhouse. The bustle was great for lifting a few coins here and there, and she felt the old urge tickling her fingers as it always did when she returned to Riften. It would be so easy to bump into someone and slide her index and middle fingers into their pockets all while apologizing for not paying attention.

People were so stupid. A glance the other way and they would fall for anything.

But she wasn’t a thief anymore; she hadn’t been, not for a long time. Not since she’d gotten her first shield and found the joy one could only discover in beating the deserving senseless.

She passed the temple of Mara, where some stupid priest was handing out those damn leaflets again, as if anyone cared. She tried to avoid his eyes, but it was too late, or she was too slow.

“Blessings of Mara upon you,” he said, thrusting a slip of paper into her hands. She glanced at it – the same drivel about Mara that they’d been forcing upon the public since…well, since forever. It was complete bullshit – the Divines didn’t help anyone. Hell, Njada wasn’t even sure they existed. They’d certainly never paid much attention to her, if they were real after all.

She crumpled up the paper and tossed it to the ground in front of the priest, then spat on it for good measure. He looked stunned, but then turned away.

Coward.

Njada turned, somehow senselessly annoyed that she’d dodged a fight, and continued on her way.

The orphanage, when she came to it, was much as she remembered. It looked half-abandoned, the weeds and other plants out front grown over the walkway, the windows dark. It had to be close to nine now, and that meant Grelod would surely be in bed. Njada made her way to the low stone wall that created a courtyard around one end of the building, and there she paused.

Even now, all these years later, it took every ounce of willpower that she possessed to look around her and begin the climb over the wall. No one was coming and the closest guard wasn’t looking her way, so she reached up and gripped the top of a stone with her right hand, using her left foot to push off the ground. Then her left hand made its way up the rock, and her right foot found purchase. Quickly – faster than she’d thought possible – she made her way to the top of the wall.

There were iron spikes up here, but it was an easy enough thing to balance over them and drop into the yard. The front door would be locked, but this one was almost always open; few people could climb that wall, and who would try to steal anything from an orphanage?

No, the spikes were to keep the children in, not to keep thieves out.

When she opened the door, it took a moment for her eyes to adjust. Inside were rows and rows of beds; she thought she could see a few children looking at her with wide eyes, but the fire had been banked and the light was low. Any child who’d spent any amount of time at Honorhall knew better than to wake Grelod anyway.

If the building caught fire, they’d certainly let her sleep through her own death.

Njada made her way to the other end of the building, and knocked quietly on the bedroom door there. Everything was silent, and she wondered if she should knock again or just go in, and then the door opened.

Just a crack at first, and through it, Njada could see a sliver of olive skin, a tendril of dark hair, and one large, dark eye. Her mouth – her beautiful, luscious mouth – opened and she whispered in the most evocative tone, “ _Njada_.”

In that moment, Njada pushed her way into the room. Constance stepped gracefully back even as her hands made it to Njada’s shoulders. The clicked shut behind them and Njada twisted the lock – and then her lips were on Constance’s, and her fingers, usually so nimble, were fumbling at the laces of the other woman’s yellow dress. Why were there so many laces? It was if Constance was trying to keep her out.

Constance tasted the way she always did, of lavender and honey. Her breath was sweet, and her hair smelled like woodsmoke. Njada, who never drank anything but water, felt intoxicated just by the scent of her.

It had been too long.

 

* * *

 

Afterwards, they lay together on Constance’s tiny bed, their legs intertwined, the sheet kicked to the foot of the bed. The roughspun blanket was twisted around Njada’s left foot, and if she wasn’t so blissful, it would be very uncomfortable. She held Constance’s left hand in her right and watched their fingers dance together in the flickering firelight. The room smelled of sweat and lavender and smoke. If only she didn’t have to leave –

“I’ve missed you,” Constance finally said. It was the first time she’d spoken a coherent sentence since Njada knocked on the door.

This argument again.

“If you’d only move to Whiterun, things would be different,” Njada responded.

“You know I can’t do that,” Constance said, as Njada had known she would. “I can’t leave the children. You know what how it is for them.” A long pause. “You know what would happen.”

A flicker of a half-forgotten memory: a dark room, chains on her wrists, a moldy crust of bread and a bucket overfilling with filth. Weeks without baths, being beaten with a belt, begging for a sip of water.

Constance always knew how to stop this argument. But she would, wouldn’t she? She’d been there, too.

And she’d been the brave one; she’d stayed.

Njada looked at her lover’s fingers, tangled around her own. It was safe in here, but soon enough she would have to go back outside, into the orphanage, then into the courtyard, then back into Riften.

Constance’s fingers were long and slim like the rest of her. Njada felt a pair of lips kiss her collarbone; her breath hitched as she considered lingering for a few minutes longer. It had been so long since her last visit, and who knew when she would be able to return?

“I know you can’t leave,” she said finally. “But right now I’m still trying to save as much money as possible.”

“I know, my love,” Constance sighed, leaning her head on Njada’s shoulder. “But someday, we’ll make it work.”

Njada looked down at her lover’s body and traced the line of one thigh with her index finger. She hoped her callouses didn’t bother Constance, but surely the other woman would tell her if they did. She could hear Constance’s breathing quicken.

The time for talk was over.


	6. Farkas

Farkas sat on his bed in Jorrvaskr’s basement, trying to think.

It was like he had a bunch of gravel rolling about in his head, this trying to make a decision business. He had a difficult enough time laying out strategy when he was given an assignment; generally he just defaulted to running in like a madman and hoping it worked out alright, which it usually did. But trying to make a decision like _this_ -

A knock at the door. His brother poked his head around, “Can I come in?”

Farkas nodded.

Vilkas came around the door and closed it behind him. His brother, for all their other similarities, was much smaller than he. At fifteen, Farkas stood head and shoulders over every other person in Whiterun. Where most boys his age were gangly or skinny, Farkas was _big_. He worked at his muscles and trained in the yard like every other Companion, but even for all that, he had grown bigger than anyone expected. Aela jokingly called him Mount Farkas, and Eorlund had had a hell of a time making armor to fit him.

In comparison, his brother was compact and lean, but strong just the same, and _smart_ – Vilkas had learned to think fast. When Farkas just hoped the Divines were on his side and that he would get lucky, Vilkas was able to get his opponents to trip over their own feet or make poor decisions in the heat of the moment. Farkas just hit them hard and fast and didn’t let up.

Vilkas sat on the bed next to his brother. Both boys were silent.

“I think we should do it,” Vilkas finally said. “It will help make us better warriors.”

That was a solid point, a larger piece of gravel than the rest.

“But what about Sovngarde?” Farkas asked. This was another big chunk of gravel. Both of these pieces, turning together, were turning his brain to mush.

The earliest memory Farkas had was of sitting on a fur by the hearth in Jorrvaskr, listening to the exploits of the Companions and the legend of Ysgramor, pudgy fingers tangled in bear fur. He was warm and safe, leaning against his brother, a cup of small beer in his hand. His belly was full, and the tales had filled his mind with dreams of glory, and he was getting ready to drift off to sleep. Jergen looked down at him with a grin, the scar on the man’s cheek still new and raw, and he kissed Farkas on the top of the head. He must have been about four.

The greatest of these stories were those about Sovngarde, where they would live forever in the Hall of Valor, drinking and dining and brawling. Farkas spent the rest of his childhood dreaming of Sovngarde, of the way the mead would taste and the excitement of meeting the long-dead heroes of Skyrim.

Vilkas looked uncomfortable; he shifted in his seat. Farkas tried to meet his eye, but Vilkas looked everywhere around the room but at his brother.

Finally, Vilkas spoke, his shoulder bumping against his own. “I don’t think werewolves go to Sovngarde.”

“Where do they go?”

“Aela says they go to Hircine’s hunting grounds.”

A Daedra. Farkas had forgotten that this would involve a Daedra.

Another big chunk of rock that hurt his head. He was becoming less certain about what to do by the minute.

“But…I _want_ to go to Sovngarde.” It came out like a pout; his voice cracked on the word “want” and Farkas cursed himself in his head. It would be nice when his voice caught up with his body and didn’t come out sounding so puny, so immature.

At this Vilkas finally met his eyes. “I know. But I wonder if we shouldn’t take this opportunity while we can.”

Looking into Vilkas’s dark eyes was like looking into a mirror; everyone said that their eyes were the same. Farkas just wished he could understand what his brother was thinking better.

“Aela wants to do it, when she’d old enough. She says her mother was one.”

That explained a lot. Aela’s mother, the shield-maid Petra, was one of the most fearsome Companions they’d ever heard of. Neither of the brothers remembered her that well, but both had heard stories of her bravery from Skjor, who’d served with her in the Great War. Rumors abounded that she and Jergen had some sort of romantic entanglement before they went off to war, but she’d returned from the front lines alone, and that had been that. She’d been known as an able huntress, and had often returned from assignments with fresh game; in the feasting hall, others had toasted her strength and prowess.

Her daughter was half-wild already. Hircine’s hunting grounds would be a picnic for her; Farkas didn’t think they would be so easy for him.

The rocks were rolling in his head again, but instead of gravel, now Farkas felt boulders.

“Who knows, there might even be a cure for it,” Vilkas said suddenly. “We might not have to do it forever.” There was a grim set to his face and his tone didn’t match the optimism of his words. Farkas wondered if his brother was as certain as he’d seemed earlier.

Not much for tact or subtext, he figured he’d just say it: “It doesn’t sound like you want to do this.”

Vilkas looked surprised. He often had that look when Farkas said what he thought.

“It’s not that I don’t want to. Or that I do. I just –“ he paused to collect his thoughts. Farkas could wait. “I see both sides.”

“I don’t think I want to do it,” Farkas replied. The more he thought about it, the more it seemed too scary, too _final._ He didn’t do well with uncertainty, and he didn’t want to consider the consequences of getting involved with the Daedra. He didn’t know a lot about them, but the priests always made it out to be a bad thing.

If there was one thing Farkas wanted to be, it was good.

“I still think we should think more about it. Kodlak doesn’t need an answer right away. And it really will make us better warriors.”

“How?”

Vilkas paused. It seemed he hadn’t given that part much thought. Perhaps he’d heard it from someone else? It was a moment before he spoke. “Well, we’ll heal faster without any potions. And if we get disarmed, we’ll be able to change and attack with claws and teeth.”

Well, that _did_ sound promising. Maybe this was something to consider.

“What else?”

Vilkas wrinkled his forehead, thinking. “I guess I don’t know.”

“But we’d have to give up any chance of going to Sovngarde,” Farkas said with the certainty only a teenager could feel.

“Yes.”

“Unless we find a cure.”

“Yes.”

“Which we could avoid doing if we just don’t become werewolves in the first place.”

His brother went silent.

“I don’t know if I want to do it,” Farkas finally repeated. “I want to be with Ysgramor and Hakon One-Eye and the other heroes when I die. You can do it if you want to.”

“But then you’ll be in Sovngarde and I’ll be with Hircine,” Vilkas said. There wasn’t exactly panic in his voice, but he didn’t sound pleased about this, either.               

That stopped Farkas cold. He turned and looked at his brother. An eternity in Sovngarde without Vilkas? What would the point in being with Hakon One-Eye be if his brother wasn’t there?

They were two sides of a coin, brawn and brains. Without Vilkas, he wouldn’t make sense.

He would have to trust his brother’s wisdom, just as he always had; Vilkas would know what to do. And if they regretted their choice, and there was a cure to be found, Vilkas would find it.

And if not, at least they would be together. As they’d always been.

 “You really want to do this?”

Vilkas nodded after a moment. “I do.”

There was that certainty again – Vilkas always knew what to do. Sometimes he had to talk it out, but in the end, Farkas could trust him to make the decisions for them both because Vilkas, five minutes older, would always take care of him. Vilkas was the wise one, he was the one no one would dare call “ice brain.”

Even after they died, whether they went to Sovngarde or not.

“Alright then, I guess we’re going to become werewolves. I don’t want to go to Sovngarde without my brother.”

A grin broke across Vilkas’s face.

“Me neither.”


	7. Vilkas

Vilkas was _tired_.

It wasn’t lack of sleep, although that was certainly one of the problems he was facing. It wasn’t that he had been walking all afternoon back towards Jorrvaskr, though he’d been on the road so long that the cold seemed to have settled into his bones.

He kept seeing them coming, the Silver Hand, in flimsy fur armor and armed with nothing more than glinting silver weapons and the fury of righteousness. He saw them slay Kodlak; he saw them die in Driftshade Refuge, no match for his own skill with a blade and – when disarmed – fury with his claws. He’d just left them there, the smell of blood cloying in their fort-turned-crypt, their bodies ripped apart.

His blood had boiled the whole first day on his trip back. It was as he was making camp that evening that he began to calm, and a strange regret overtook him.

Because they were _right._

They weren’t right to kill Kodlak, he mused as he began setting up his small tent. Kodlak had been a good man, a good leader, and master of the beast inside. Kodlak, Vilkas knew, had struggled with the wolf too. Kodlak hadn’t given in and enjoyed it as Aela did, as Skjor had.

As _he_ sometimes did.

It was hard to find burnable wood out here in the mountains that bordered The Pale. It was bad enough that he’d had to make camp perched like a goat on the side of a cliff, but trying to start a fire was proving nearly impossible. He moved through the braken, keeping his tent in sight. The snow that seemed to perpetually fall out here was picking up, and he realized that any wood he did find would probably be too wet to burn.

He made his way slowly back towards the tent, a black shape in the graying woods. His hair was wet, and cold, and would start freezing soon. It would have been smarter to stay at the fort, but the hunger that rose up inside his stomach at the smell of all that blood disgusted him. He wasn’t sure if he could be trusted to stay all night in that tomb under the snow with the bodies around him without giving in.

Even outside, in the courtyard, he wasn’t safe from that ravenous beast inside, the one that could smell the coppery tang of blood and death.

Inside the tent was still cold, but when he tied the flap closed and settled inside his furs, it wasn’t long before he ceased seeing each of his breaths come out in a cloud of steam. Then there was nothing to do but the sit alone with his thoughts.

And what thoughts they were; regrets piled upon each other like a ramshackle house built by a madman. Sheogorath himself would applaud.

For all Kodlak said he was the smart one, it had been Vilkas who had foolishly chosen to take the beast blood – chosen for him _and_ for his brother – and now they were damned. Now he would never see Sovngarde, and now he had given in to vengeance.

He couldn’t think of a less honorable reason to fight.

Perhaps a bear would come along in the night and slaughter him; perhaps the snow would fall so heavily his tent would collapse and he would suffocate. It would be easy to die quietly in his sleep.

Vilkas didn’t think he deserved an easy death. No, for what he’d done – for what he’d _become_ – he deserved to be torn apart and to feel every moment of it.

 

…

 

Dawn took an era in coming, and when it was light enough inside the tent to make it out, Vilkas found he was still alive. Death had chosen to pass him by this time.

He took a piece of salted venison, courtesy of Aela, from a pouch and chewed it like cud as he struck his tent. The snow had stopped during the night, and what had fallen was light and shook easily from the canvas roof of his tent. Before long, he was walking along again, climbing back down the mountain, headed for the border of The Pale.

 Alone with his thoughts and nothing to occupy his mind but putting one foot ahead of another.

Farkas had been the wise one in this case, as he was more often the Vilkas would admit to himself. It had been Farkas who’d asked if they needed to take the beast blood, Farkas who’d thrown up every road block that he himself had been all too willing to blindly race past in his quest for more power.

More power, and now more regret.

Of course.

The Silver Hand’s method was abhorrent, and they’d deserved everything he’d delivered upon them. There was no doubt about that.

But - they had had a point.

Around him, the woods became whiter and less gray as sunlight, filtered through heavy clouds, made its way down to him. The trees were still dark against the snowy ground, the ridges in the bark traced in snow and ice. It was unlikely to get above freezing today and yet he was beginning to sweat inside his armor.

By the position of the sun it was about mid-day that Vilkas finally came upon the road he’d been looking for. He turned south, his boots ringing out on the cobblestones. Normally he didn’t mind the sound – let every beast and man in a mile hear him coming – but today he felt too weary and distracted to pick a fight. Idly, he envied those masters of stealth that could make their way through the countryside in secret. As a boy, he’d always thought that those with the talent to sneak were cowards, but for the first time he understood the allure of being unseen.

Vilkas had had barely a moment to reflect on this when the thief appeared in front of him. Covered head-to-toe in worn brown leather, it was difficult to tell what race the thief was. He was as tall as Vilkas and built like a warhorse. His accent, when he spoke, was difficult to place. He didn’t sound like a Nord, but Vilkas couldn’t figure out where he was from, if it was even part of Tamriel.

“Give me all your gold.”

Vilkas barked out a laugh.

“I haven’t any, friend.” It wasn’t a lie. He didn’t have so much as a septim on him. It was clear from his posture that the thief didn’t believe him.

“What about that?” The thief gestured to the pouch that hung from Vilkas’s waist. Inside, the fragments of Wuuthrad that he’d recovered from the refuge were heavy. A broken piece leaned sharply into his thigh, but he held still, waiting.

Vilkas laughed again. “It’s not what you think,” he said. “It has value, but not to the likes of you.”

Under the thief’s hood, Vilkas saw the other man’s eyes narrow. “What does that mean?” He hissed.

This wasn’t going well.

“I mean,” Vilkas said, an edge to his voice, “that it has no value to one who would pawn it.”

It was at that moment that the thief attacked. His blade was thin, and long, and black edged with red. Vilkas had seen its’ like only once before: daedric-forged.

Of _course_ it would be a daedric blade.

It was an easy enough thing to step aside as the thief lunged at him. For all his fine leather armor and his fancy weapon, the thief was big and clumsy and didn’t redirect well as Vilkas angled his body away. As he turned, he pulled his big sword from its sheath and held it waist high, at the ready.

When the thief turned, it was easy enough to smack the flat of his blade against the thief’s side. There was a dull thump as it hit him, and the thief groaned.

“This is your last chance,” Vilkas growled. “Go about your business and leave me alone and I’ll let you keep all your parts.”

But the thief didn’t listen and instead reached for the pouch that held the fragments of Wuuthrad.

Vilkas casually turned his sword in his hands, and the Skyforge steel cut through the thief’s flimsy armor like a hot blade through butter, right through the stomach. Blood dotted the snow, brilliant red on gleaming white.

The thief dropped to his knees, then onto his face. The red snow spread. In moments, the thief had bled out and stopped twitching.

Vilkas stood for a moment, sad. It had been too easy to dispose of this thief; there was no honor in this kill. No one would sing of his defense of Wuuthrad, because no one would know,; he felt no desire to share the story with his brothers.

The wolf had risen again. It had given him the strength he’d needed.

But at what cost?


End file.
